I Suck as a Scribe
Zane is studying the life cycle of the caterpillar this week. They even have a few caterpillars in the classroom and a couple have already formed a chrysalis. I asked him what was the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. He said, “it’s the same–isn’t it?” “I don’t know, Dude. Weren’t you paying attention in class when they went over that? You tell me. Why are we paying all this money to send you to school if your aren’t going to pay attention in class?” I replied. (I didn’t know the answer but I felt with some crafty blaming and guilting I could avoid having to expose my inadequacies in the insect world.) I’ve come to find out that the real difference is that moths form cocoons by wrapping themselves up in their silk prior to making their pupa. Butterflies don’t. They have silk they just don’t wrap up like the moths do. It’s all very complicated stuff and better suited for discussion involving the minute differences between the butterfly and the moth and their respective chrysalis as opposed to cocoon formation as they enter the pupa stage of complete metamorphosis. And this is not a discussion about the chrysalis so let’s forget I mentioned it and move on, shall we?It’s Sharing Thursday. Essentially, it’s the kindergarten equivalent of show and tell but with a twist. Each week Zane is informed on Monday the topic for the upcoming Sharing Thursday. It’s usually pretty simple stuff: write a word with a long vowel and silent e and draw a picture, bring your favorite stuffed animal, draw a picture that shows under, bring in something that can be recycled…..you get the picture. This week would have been just as easy—for a normal parent.
Our assignment for this week was to bring in a time line of the life of Zane–using no more than five or six pictures. Like I said, an easy task for a normal parent. I’ve been called many things in my lifetime, normal does not spring to mind as being one of them. In the brief span of seven years as self appointed scribe of the family I have no fewer than 9 (NINE) different forms of storage media containing our family photos. I’ve got pictures on floppy discs, on zip drives, on cds, on mini dvds, on vhs, on mini dvs, on compact flash drives, on memory sticks and yes, even on hard copy photographs. Some of these I am completely unable to access as the computer technology used for them is now obsolete. My problem is that the photos are scattered all over the house with no specific order or pattern. Most of the discs aren’t labeled. It is a nightmare!
I should have been able to go to a drawer or shelf and pull off in succession the five specific years without a hint of trouble. In my mind I had envisioned our pictures each Christmas with Santa. We’ve been using the same Santa at the same mall since Zoë had her first Santa pic. I thought it would be a pretty cool way to show Zane on a yearly time line and figured it would be pretty simple to organize six years of Santa. Instead I spent the evening running from the basement to the attic and all points in between to try and locate a suitable set for a representative time line. It took me nearly four hours–long after the kids were in bed. I couldn’t find all of the Santa pictures. Still can’t. I’ve quit looking. But not perseverating.
I suppose I should add *organize photographs* to my list of things that need to get done around here.
